Believe   2
	Lazily running his fingers through the waves of mahogany strands, Vincent suddenly froze. Sensing her lover's tension, Aeris wearily raised her head from the warm familiar chest. "What is it?" she whispered, letting her gaze devour the long silky hair, the garnet orbs, the pale smooth skin... She still couldn't believe what all her senses told her. That Vincent was alive... It couldn't be true. It just couldn't be, yet he lived and breathed and loved her. . . . It had been a kind of madness to love him. . . . Alone and seeking her own kind, she met him. Human, yet who somehow seemed alienated from the rest of the world as she. At the time she was the owner of a small flower shop, and one gray rainy day, he stood there just a step away from the store awning so that the water droplets drizzled down upon him. The strange maroon eyes were fixed upon some flower in one corner of the shop, and something - perhaps it was loneliness from the unhappy weather - compelled her to go to him and invite him in from the rain. Once she called him out of his seeming stupor, she sensed that he would immediately walk away, and somehow, she did not want him to leave. So she chattered on without giving him the opening to talk his way out, and managed to invite him in to have some tea. He did not talk. She did not even find out his name, although she had told him hers, but she was content just having him there across from her as they sat sipping tea. She talked of nothing and everything, anything just to fill the silence. Her kind avoided being alone as much as possible. Loneliness wilted them as humans would from lack of air. Not having anyone to talk to, even just for one day, was a torture that threatened to overcome her life. She hated the rainy days when there were very few customers. How could she not have invited him in, even if he did not talk at all? It had not mattered. It was enough, just to have him there. When he left, she knew she would never see him again. She felt a little sad, but she was used to the small pain in her heart. Because her kind received eternal life upon birth, they rarely intermingled among the short lived mortals. But that was when there were many of them. All too soon for her, she was the last remaining surivivor that she knew of her kind. Still too young to have chosen a life mate yet old enough so that she had the will to live, she survived. If she had a life mate who died, so too she would have followed soon after. If she had been younger, she would have faded away just because all the others were dying. But she lived because she could not give up. She could only cling to a slender hope that someone from her kind still survived, someone who could not give up as she had never been able to. In her loneliness, she chose to live among humans. At first they did not seem that different from her kind, but they grew old, and in the shortness of their lives, their souls burned more brightly than any she knew. At first, drawn by the brilliance of their lives, she had befriended many, only to learn that she could not walk their lives with them. Not when she did not grow old as they did. Once she knew, truly knew what it meant to live as the last of her kind, she almost gave up. That was when she met him. Just another chance meeting. Just another face to say goodbye to. She did not know that she would say 'hello' again to him. The stranger had not returned to her shop again, and in the following sunny days, her shop was filled with customers so that she had just about forgotten about him. 'Aeris...?' When the low husky voice called her name, she did not know who it could be. She turned around, and almost dropped the flowers that she was carrying. The long silky hair tied in the back, he stood in the white hospital hallway, one hand hidden in a pocket of his white coat. 'Are you ill?' He demanded before she could utter any word, and the concern in his voice told her that she had found her heart's desire. . . . . "Vincent, what's wrong?" she pressed when he did not reply for a long time. Just as suddenly, the tension left his body, and his deceptively gentle eyes smiled up at her. "I just remembered why I was in the mall," he chuckled, his fingers playing with her hair again. "Hmmm? What were you doing there?" Satisfied that nothing serious was wrong, Aeris laid her cheek back against his shoulder. "There was an auction," he replied and resignation tinged his voice. "I was supposed to be there and bid for a gun for my boss, but..." His arm tightened around her, and she snuggled closer to him. "How come..." he began, but she kissed him, cutting his words off. "How come I'm still alive?" she asked the question for him after a long moment of silence. "I could ask the same of you, but I won't." because I already know and you should already have guessed why I'm alive... "But Aeris..." but since you haven't guessed yet, I'll let you know why I know "I always thought vampires couldn't walk under the sun" She grinned as she felt realization finally dawn on her lover.